ArticleRoyal Society open science2019
Is implicit Theory of Mind real but hard to detect? Testing adults with different stimulus materials.
Article in Royal Society open science, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Implicit Mentalizing in Patients With Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Pooled it
- A Verbal Behavior Analysis of Theory of Mind: Conceptual and Applied Implications.Perspectives on behavior science · 2026Article
- Does implicit mentalizing involve the representation of others' mental state content? Examining domain-specificity with an adapted Joint Simon task.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Do autistic adults spontaneously reason about belief? A detailed exploration of alternative explanations.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Evaluative contexts facilitate implicit mentalizing: relation to the broader autism phenotype and mental health.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- What are they all doing in that restaurant? Perspectives on the use of theory of mind.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Spontaneous theory of mind in autism: are anticipatory gaze and reaction time biases consistent?Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Characterization of implicit and explicit mind-reading in children with autism based on eye movements.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Article
- Theory of mind tested by implicit false belief: a simple and full-fledged mental state attribution.The FEBS journal · 2022Review
- The Effect of Social Presence on Mentalizing Behavior.Cognitive science · 2022Article
- Implicit Theory of Mind under realistic social circumstances measured with mobile eye-tracking.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recently, Theory of Mind (ToM) research has been revolutionized by new methods. Eye-tracking studies measuring subjects' looking times or anticipatory looking have suggested that implicit and automatic forms of ToM develop much earlier in ontogeny than traditionally assumed and continue to operate outside of subjects' awareness throughout the lifespan. However, the reliability of these implicit methods has recently been put into question by an increasing number of non-replications. What remains unclear from these accumulating non-replication findings, though, is whether they present true negatives (there is no robust phenomenon of automatic ToM) or false ones (automatic ToM is real but difficult to tap). In order to address these questions, the current study implemented conceptual replications of influential anticipatory looking ToM tasks with a new variation in the stimuli. In two separate preregistered studies, we used increasingly realistic stimuli and controlled for potential confounds. Even with these more realistic stimuli, previous results could not be replicated. Rather, the anticipatory looking pattern found here remained largely compatible with more parsimonious explanations. In conclusion, the reality and robustness of automatic ToM remains controversial.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.